Eating a virus

[shootingstar]

Seems like I've had this happen several times over past few years..after eating something, I get a flu/cold-like symptoms.

I just got out of a 24 hr. like fever/flu ..just shortly after I ate seafood paella that I had made for both of us. There was shrimp, mussels, clams and halibut chunks amongst the risotto plus abit of white wine. Everything was well-cooked and served hot.

'Course I cursed that perhaps my body was in overdrive with too much carbs to drive my sugar level up too fast.

Another year I ate an apple that I washed in advance ..and ended up with a sore throat for a few days.

[Grits]

I don't have any medical background at all, but I wonder if you could just consider this a coincidence? Perhaps you already had picked up the illness (stomach bug, sore throat virus), and then just happened to develop the symptoms after you ate those particular things? After all, you have to eat SOMETHING before you get sick from normally contracted illnesses. Maybe the food had nothing to do with your sickness at all, and you would have had the same symptoms even if you had nothing to eat. Just an idea.

[Grog]

Sorry about that, I hope you feel better by the time you leave home for your trip.

If somehow there was something wrong with the seafood (I'm thinking about the mussels and clams in particular) it's likely that cooking wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Don't beat yourself down.

Take care!

[alpinerabbit]

You could be developing an "allergy" to shellfish. Shrimps, oysters and such - lots of people develop it & get nauseous from it.

(I'd like to tell you to try it again, experimentally eat a load of shrimp - but I don't want you to feel bad).

I had it once, I don't think there was anything wrong with the oysters, maybe it was a reaction to stress - ever since oysters don't really appeal to me anymore.

Regular flu viruses are only contracted via your nasal mucosa, and unless someone sneezed on that apple - very unlikely...

[Grog]

I had it once, I don't think there was anything wrong with the oysters, maybe it was a reaction to stress - ever since oysters don't really appeal to me anymore.


Although it's not the case here because there were no oysters in Shootingstar's paella, British Columbia oysters (and presumably those from Washington state too) have had a few episodes of toxicity these last few years. I can't remember the exact problem (the bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus turns up upon a google search but it might be something else too). Problem is, the oysters look and smell fine, they just make you really sick. Probably doesn't kill anyone though, but maybe that's because pregnant women and immunocompromised folks don't eat many oysters at a time... (!) If the oysters are cooked, in theory, it should be fine, but if they have contaminated kitchen instruments and stuff like that you might still get sick.

:(

This being said, I still eat oysters whenever I can. And I had wonderful fresh prawns on Christmas day (a relative of ours is a fisherman).

[Crankin]

It sounds like a developing shellfish allergy. I ate all shellfish until my late 30s. Then I started getting severe gastric distress when eating clams, shrimp, and lobster.
The next year, I had a clam roll and started having trouble breathing and my lips swelled up. That was it. I can eat scallops, but nothing else.

[OakLeaf]

a slight temperature rise is possible with allergic reactions, but I wouldn't characterize it as "fever." Anyway, any reaction to the shellfish doesn't account for the apple. Sounds like coincidence to me.

[Eden]

Sounds like a coincidence or food poisoning.

Remember real flu (what you get the shot for) is *not* a stomach illness. Actual flu is a very bad respiratory infection. Most of what people call flu (stomach flu) is actually food poisoning or a viral gastroenteritis that makes you throw up, get fever, etc.

Also, some types of food poisoning can happen even if you properly cook the food. Sometimes its not the bacteria themselves that make you sick, but rather the toxins that the bacteria produce and cooking/heat does not always destroy those toxins.

[RoadRaven]

Like Oak I have doubts about the seafood allergy - the apple doesn't make sense. And you are talking about 2 incidents separated by a year...

Methinks its just coincidence too... but if in doubt, see a health professional about it.

Oak... allergic reactions can cause death (anephylactic spelling? shock) - so I think a fever/high temp is entirely plausible in a food allergy situation.

[shootingstar]

Well..am better. But cough is persisting.

We cancelled our train trip to Jasper for snowshoeing. Our train wasn't running anyway..and decided not to opt for later one a few days later.

Amazing how one can get weakened by this sort of thing.

[malkin]

Bummer that you got sick.

My vote is coincidence for the apple, and probably for the seafood too. If it's of any interest, I think I've had food poisoning more than anyone else I know, and I've never had a residual cough from it.

Hope you feel better soon.

[bmccasland]

Shootingstar - go see an allergist, and until you do, avoid eating the seafood, or avoid eating at that restaurant. You need to be checked for food allergies. Either that or you had food poisoning. Most cases of "stomach flu" is not influenza virus but mild cases of food poisoning. I had full blow anaphalytic shock, and had my sorry butt hauled out of a restaurant by ambulance last year. The ER doc said that it was one of two things - I have a food allergy, or I'm allergic to something my food ate. When I was tested for allergies to all sorts of seafoods - I had a seafood paella as well - I did not show positive for any of the ingredients in the paella and they tested me (a blood sample) for ALL of them. Which leads my doctors to believe the ER Doc's theory - it was the sea bed the seafood came from - so we'll probably never know what exactly I'm allergic to. So I no longer eat squid, squid ink, or octapus, or any dish that contains them, all the other ingredients in the paella I've eaten frequently without trouble. And I don't try anything new if I'm more than 20 minutes away from a hospital. Takes all the fun out of trying new things too.

While you system is weakened that makes you vunerable to random bugs, which doesn't help matters.

Hope you're feeling better!

[OakLeaf]

Oak... allergic reactions can cause death (anephylactic spelling? shock) - so I think a fever/high temp is entirely plausible in a food allergy situation.

I've been carrying an Epi-Pen for 32 years now, I've had anaphylactoid reactions to both bee stings and ingested items, plus I have the other type of food allergies too. Apparently anaphylaxis does increase core temperature, but that shouldn't last 24 hours I don't think - and mostly I don't think it would be a symptom that's very noticeable to the victim considering everything else that's going on during an anaphylactoid reaction.

I've had food poisoning four or five times and it's never been gone in 24 hours either. Also food poisoning usually takes several hours from ingestion to onset of symptoms. "Stomach flu" is usually a rotavirus or norovirus - influenza virus is something else entirely.

Shootingstar, did you have any other allergy type symptoms? Sneezing, itching, swelling, congestion, hives, wheezing, rashes, rapid or irregular heartbeat, conjunctivitis...? Anyway, hope you're feeling lots better!

Beth, you ARE carrying an Epi-Pen, aren't you?

I'm just sayin'...

[bmccasland]

Beth, you ARE carrying an Epi-Pen, aren't you?

I'm just sayin'...

Yeppers. Been carrying my life-insurance-policy-in-a-purse ever since I found out the hard way that I'm still allergic to the Hymenoptera group back in college - cough, cough, some mumble mumble 30 years ago. Not the same pen, I DO get it changed regularily! Now if they'd make an Epi-pen that would fit in a little clutch purse, I'd be a much happier camper.

[shootingstar]

I've had food poisoning four or five times and it's never been gone in 24 hours either. Also food poisoning usually takes several hours from ingestion to onset of symptoms. "Stomach flu" is usually a rotavirus or norovirus - influenza virus is something else entirely.

Shootingstar, did you have any other allergy type symptoms? Sneezing, itching, swelling, congestion, hives, wheezing, rashes, rapid or irregular heartbeat, conjunctivitis...? Anyway, hope you're feeling lots better!

Just a sore throat from coughing alot right now. Will see a doctor if I don't get better. I actually have booked ages ago a few vacation days off next wk. Just as well I wasn't at work with this stuff.

I do need to recover soon since must deal with a whole whack of work stuff in final work week for transfer of responsibilities/training before I leave old employer...for new employer.

[OakLeaf]

Now if they'd make an Epi-pen that would fit in a little clutch purse, I'd be a much happier camper.

Or in a reasonably sized seat pack, either. And why did they have to make the outer packaging so much BIGGER in the latest revision, when the pen itself is the same size. :mad:

I'm ready to go back to the old Ana-Kit just for the smaller packaging. I give myself my allergy shots so I don't mind doing it the old fashioned way. (I guess Epi-Pens are automatically IM though, so I wonder if they're more effective than giving oneself a subQ injection? I don't think I'd have the nerve to inject myself IM with a regular syringe like you get in the Ana-Kit!)

[kelownagirl]

I've been carrying an Epi-Pen for 32 years now, I've had anaphylactoid reactions to both bee stings and ingested items, plus I have the other type of food allergies too. Apparently anaphylaxis does increase core temperature, but that shouldn't last 24 hours I don't think - and mostly I don't think it would be a symptom that's very noticeable to the victim considering everything else that's going on during an anaphylactoid reaction.


Have you considered getting immunotherapy? I started my monthly shots for a severe wasp allergy 18 mos ago and after 1 year, I don't have to carry an epi-pen. I do have to get the shots every 2 months for the next 4 years tho. well worth it imo

[OakLeaf]

I had immunotherapy right after I had the reaction to the sting. Then about the time I finished it, the Powers that Be declared that the old mixed hymenoptera shots were ineffective. :rolleyes: I've been stung many times by many different things and only had the reaction once, but I was stung in the face and didn't actually see what it was.

Same with whatever it is that I ate... when I had the worst reaction, I thought it was aspirin, but then I ate twice more at the same restaurant and broke out in a prickly rash all over - enough to make me go park outside the ER until it was over, but not enough to go inside. :p So I think it was either some odd ingredient they were using, or some kind of contaminant, but again I don't know what. Haven't taken aspirin since then, but I'm actually thinking I'll go park outside the ER and challenge that sometime soon, since there are so many health benefits to low dose aspirin.

I do take shots for my inhalant allergies, and I TOTALLY swear by immunotherapy. Nothing, nothing, nothing has improved the quality of my life so much as those shots (plus identifying and managing my food allergies). Used to be I couldn't even function for two or three weeks in late summer (weeds and molds), and suffered all year round with allergies to one thing or another.

But I haven't had good luck with developing a tolerance the way some people do. I'm a lot less sensitive to certain things than I used to be, and there was one mold that I didn't react to at all the last time I was tested, but everything else (of the 20 or so inhalants in my shots) I still react to. I was on sublingual drops for my food allergies for a while, but the allergist's office themselves admitted that immunotherapy for food allergies isn't usually very effective, and it didn't seem to do much for me.

But in any case, I'll continue to carry the Epi-Pen even though I've never had to use it. The way my allergist explained it, developing an allergy is like walking off a cliff... with each "step" (exposure) you get closer to the edge, but nothing seems any different until you fall. Specific allergies develop via exposure, but the immune dysfunction that causes them "lives" in your immune system, so I could develop an allergy to something else. I just figure it's a stupid thing to die of for want of a $50 prescription (reimbursed by insurance).

[Aint Doody]

Another believer in immunotherapy. I gave myself 4 shots each week for 5 years. I'd taken antihistamines everyday for 25 years before I did this. When I was tested for 45 inhalants in our area, I was allergic to all but 5 items. Now I only have to take antihistamines in the early fall. Sooooo much better than not being able to breathe.

[bmccasland]

I'd go for immunotherapy for allergies if I knew I'd stay put geographically - but my roots haven't grown very deep yet. Been here 6 years, and have the itch to move again. As for treatment for the really dangerous things - I've lived this long without knowing I even had a food allergy, and I can recount the number of times I've been stung by a wasp that prompted me to actually use the Epi-pen, so I'm not certain immunotherapy treatment would be worth it. So far avoidace has worked rather well.

Long time ago, when I was trying to save money and didn't have health insurance - I had syringes & vials of epinephrine - so when I got stung, I had to snap the top of the vial, draw the epi up in the syringe, then give myself a shot. Felt like a junkie felt (I suppose) needing a fix - got to have my fix or I'm going to die. On the other hand, when I was married to a paramedic, my husband would trade out my vials of epi for fresh vials at the hospital pharmacy, so I didn't need a new Rx for over 10 years (after we got divorced). Self injecting Epi-pens are much easier to use when you're about to black out from lack of oxygen than trying to load a syringe and give yourself a shot. I'll take the $20 Epi-pen if I had a choice.

[OakLeaf]

wow, where do you get an EpiPen for $20?? My insurance reimburses mine, but they're around $50 at Walgreens and CVS.

Ana-Kits come with the syringe pre-loaded. You still have to give yourself the shot, but at least you don't have to draw up the serum.

[malkin]

I was just reading about Norovirus and found this in a list of ways to prevent its spread:

Food and Water Safety

Avoid joining an estimated 9.2 million cases of foodborne norovirus infections each year by preventing food contamination. Always wash raw food before eating, and don't eat food prepared by someone who is ill until 2-3 days after symptoms have cleared.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080131121800.htm

So maybe you can eat a virus after all.